More than a smell: what's actually being fought over in Mount Dora
Residents near the Mid-Florida Materials landfill say the sulfurous smell gives them headaches. Lake County, Mount Dora, and the county Water Authority say the stakes are higher: an unlined landfill beside a sink that drains straight into the Floridan Aquifer, and they're putting up a $1 million bond to move the fight into circuit court. But the map around the landfill tells a third story — a 550-acre jobs district that shares the sink's name, a tax base that has nearly tripled in a decade, and a question nobody in the fight is asking out loud: if the county wins, where does the debris go?
- Lake County and Mount Dora first challenged the state DEP's permit extension for the Hubbard Construction landfill through administrative hearings; they're now pivoting to circuit court, which requires a $1 million bond the commission took up Tuesday morning. The Lake County Water Authority voted 3-1 on Oct. 21 to join as a co-plaintiff, splitting legal costs roughly in thirds.
- The county's petition alleges the unlined C&D landfill has already contaminated groundwater — elevated aluminum, benzene, and methane in monitoring wells, PFAS-bearing leachate — worsened when Hurricane Milton's runoff spilled into Wolf Branch Sink, which drains directly into the Floridan Aquifer. The company denies contamination and says its operation is safe and recycling-focused.
- Thirteen miles east on the same road sits Wekiva Falls, where a natural sulfur spring vents the same Floridan Aquifer to the Wekiva River — proof the corridor's water carries a natural sulfur signature. That complicates the smell fight (the company can fairly note sulfur is native here), but not the well data: benzene, methane, aluminum, and PFAS in monitoring wells aren't spring water perfume, and Mount Dora's city-ordered study still pointed the odor at the facility — where gypsum drywall breaking down in a C&D landfill is the textbook source of hydrogen-sulfide stink.
- The landfill sits beside the Wolf Branch Innovation District, where the county approved 550 acres of jobs/commercial development in March 2025 — its flagship answer to 70% of its workforce commuting out of county. Countywide, taxable value rose about 11.6% in a year, including roughly $2 billion in new construction; the general-fund tax base has grown from $16.27 billion (2015) to about $44.85 billion (2025).
- Commercial and industrial value is the revenue Amendment 3 cannot exempt — analysts estimate A3 could cut the county's general-fund taxable base ~19.5% in year one and ~31.9% at full phase-in. And if the landfill closes, the debris doesn't vanish: the county's own C&D cell at Astatula is about 6 acres kept for emergencies, so construction debris would be trucked to neighboring counties' landfills.
The public version of this fight is a smell. Residents near the Mid-Florida Materials landfill on State Road 46 outside Mount Dora describe a sulfurous stench that gets into their houses; some report headaches and respiratory trouble. A city-ordered study in May linked the facility to the odor. It is a real grievance, and it is also the smallest part of what's being fought over.
The legal version is water. The facility is an unlined construction-and-demolition landfill — standard for its class — sitting next to Wolf Branch Sink, which contains a swallet: a place where surface water drains directly down into the Floridan Aquifer instead of filtering slowly through soil. After Hurricane Milton, county officials say, contaminated runoff from the landfill spilled into the sink. Lake County's petition, spearheaded by Commission Chair Leslie Campione, alleges the landfill 'already contaminated groundwater,' citing monitoring wells showing increased aluminum, benzene, and methane, and leachate containing PFAS reaching the sink and the aquifer. County attorneys told the Water Authority last week that groundwater monitoring shows permit exceedances. Hubbard Construction, which owns the facility, denies any contamination and says its operations are safe and focused on recycling.
The corridor itself will testify for both sides. Drive thirteen miles east on SR 46 — about twenty minutes — and you reach Wekiva Falls in Sorrento, where a natural sulfur spring vents this same aquifer into the Wekiva River. Sulfur is in the water here by geology, not just by landfill, and Hubbard's lawyers will not be shy about saying so when the smell complaints come up. But the county's case was never only a smell case: its petition rests on what's been measured in the monitoring wells — aluminum, benzene, methane, PFAS — none of which a spring puts there. And on the odor itself, the city's own study pointed at the facility, where the usual suspect in C&D landfills is gypsum drywall, which produces hydrogen sulfide as it breaks down. The springs give the company an argument. They don't give it the well data.
The tactical version is a million-dollar bond. Lake County and Mount Dora spent the last phase of this fight challenging the state DEP's permit modification — an extension to May 2030 that gives Hubbard time to build a full stormwater system — through administrative hearings. They've concluded that lane is too weak and are moving their claims into circuit court. Getting there requires posting a $1 million bond, which the commission took up Tuesday morning with residents rallying to pack the room. The coalition widened on Oct. 21, when the Lake County Water Authority voted 3-1 to join as a co-plaintiff, splitting legal costs roughly in thirds with the county and Mount Dora.
Then there's the map. The landfill and the sink share a name with the county's flagship economic project: the Wolf Branch Innovation District, where in March 2025 the commission approved land-use changes for 550 acres — Mount Dora North and South — a mix of industrial space, offices, commercial, and housing around a village center, just east of downtown along SR 46 and the Wekiva Parkway spur. The district is the county's designated employment center, built on a stark number county staff cite often: about 70% of Lake County's workforce leaves the county to work every day. Land in the district is already being marketed as a 'high-growth' development opportunity, and national builders are circling nearby parcels.
And underneath the map is the money. Lake County's tax base has nearly tripled in a decade — the general-fund taxable value grew from about $16.27 billion in 2015 to roughly $44.85 billion in 2025, and the county's general-fund levy grew from $86.3 million to $225.4 million over the same span. In a single recent year, countywide taxable values rose about 11.6%, including roughly $2 billion in new construction. That growth is also the county's hedge against what's on the November ballot: analysts estimate Amendment 3's expanded homestead exemption could cut the county's general-fund taxable base by about 19.5% in its first year and 31.9% at full phase-in. Homestead value is what the amendment exempts. Commercial and industrial value — a jobs district's value — it cannot touch. Protecting Wolf Branch's viability is not just an environmental position for this county; it's revenue defense.
Finally, the question nobody at the podium is asking. Suppose the county wins everything: the permit dies, the landfill closes. Construction debris is not optional output — a county adding $2 billion a year in new construction generates it by the truckload, and every roof torn off in Mount Dora has to go somewhere. Lake County's own C&D disposal area, at its central facility in Astatula, is about 6 acres that the county keeps permitted mainly for extraordinary events and storm debris, per its state permit documents. It cannot absorb a regional facility's flow. So the loads would roll to permitted landfills in the neighboring counties — longer hauls, higher costs folded into every building price in Lake County, and the trucks, the dust, and the next landfill fight arriving in somebody else's backyard. Even the buried waste stays: closure means a cap and decades of monitoring, not removal.
None of that makes the county wrong about the water — a swallet draining into the aquifer is a serious thing to site a landfill beside, and the monitoring numbers will either hold up in court or they won't. It just means Tuesday's bond vote was never only about a smell, or even only about a sink. It's about who pays for growth, who hosts it, and whose map it lands on. This story will be updated with the bond vote's outcome when it is reported.